Meari to majo no hana

This is certainly a flashback to the heyday of Studio Ghibli. Unfortunately, it comes across as more a rehash than a new production. The film mashes together some of the best of Ghibli (and Miyazaki in particular), Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, but it does little more than pay homage to its great predecessors. There is very little remarkable, and not much entertaining about this film. The story is predictable, cliche, and point to point unsurprising. It channels more of the last Ghibli films, which tended toward the gimmicky kid junk, than the greatest of the studio and the genre. I had high hopes for this movie because the previews reminded me of all that I had loved about the Ghibli and the Miyazaki catalog, but it was mostly a disappointment.